


bruisewort

by moschiola



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:41:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22022731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moschiola/pseuds/moschiola
Summary: She's seen Daisy at her most needful, and Daisy doesn't bend. Daisy just gets more brittle.A quick little meditation on Basira and Daisy, post-Q&A. Very, very light spoilers up to about MAG82 or so.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	bruisewort

There’s no secret softness to Daisy.

Which is not the same thing as having no vulnerabilities; Basira knows that better than most. But she's seen Daisy at her most needful, and Daisy doesn't bend. Daisy just gets more brittle. When she breaks, she doesn't curl in on herself, she just sports more jagged edges. That's why she needs Basira. Together, they almost make one functional person.

Martin asked once, talking in nervous circles around it like that would somehow make it less intrusive, if they were girlfriends. Basira barked out a surprised laugh—Daisy and "girlfriends" sounds like a joke. That's a word for a different world. Girlfriends come and go, but Daisy is magnetic north. Daisy is flawed and human and not-human and the only real thing in the fucking world. 

Oh, said Martin. I just thought—I mean, I saw—don't you—

Basira took pity on him and said: We have sex sometimes, sure. That's not the same as girlfriends.

Even though he was the one to bring it up, Martin went a hilarious shade of red. After a second, clearly in a valiant effort to seem less awkward about it, he mumbled, Oh, sure, I get it, like a—a friends with benefits thing, right.

Basira just shrugged. That's probably even further from the truth, but she couldn't be bothered to get into it. Martin K. Blackwood with his poetry and his pining just isn't built to understand some things. 

She can't even articulate it to herself, though she's never felt the need to. It all makes a lot more sense now that she knows about the Hunt: the way her pulse rabbits when Daisy prowls up the mattress to her, adrenaline and heat all mixed up in her blood. The way her gut screams danger even when she’s got Daisy convulsing underneath her. They haven't even fucked that often, but Basira knows in her bones that she will never stop feeling terrified when Daisy peels off her shirt. She'll never be done with that simmering instinct to flee, just like she'll never actually run.

The two of them are a closed system. There's not enough daylight between them for romance or even proper affection, really. It'd be like trying to court the force of gravity, or the breath in your own lungs. 

She supposes she’s got more in common with Martin than she’d like to admit, actually. They’re both very all-or-nothing sorts, it’s just that Basira's more adaptable. Long ago, she realigned her world to fit around the fact of Alice Tonner, and if the monsters of the world ever do manage to take Daisy away, her absence will define Basira as much as her presence does now. 

Maybe that’s love, or close enough. It doesn’t look a whole lot like it does in the movies, but neither of them are especially conventional leading ladies anyway. And Basira’s never needed flowers or holding hands in the park; she’s always thought that softness was a bit overrated. 

**Author's Note:**

> So hi, 7 years later...I almost forgot I had this account. Happy end-of-the-decade, y'all, it's been a weird one.
> 
> I do actually like and support how their relationship is handled in canon, and I think it's been done quite thoughtfully. I just also have a weakness for f/f relationships that are sort of self-destructive and complicated by trauma ("projection"? I don't know her), so when I heard the second S4 Q&A, I had a very predictable urge to dash this off even though I don't really have the time to be properly in any fandom, these days.
> 
> According to wikipedia, _bruisewort_ is a historical name for the English daisy.


End file.
